China still leads the world in robotic machinery market

Automation is taking China by storm. First, the country hoovered up many of the world's manufacturing jobs, and now it is, in turn, outsourcing that work to robots (机器人).

自动化正在席卷中国。最初，中国承接了全世界的大量制造任务，如今正在把这些任务外包给机器人。

Since 2013, China has topped the list as the world’s biggest market for robotic machinery. That appetite is not subsiding. The country’s sales for the machines surged 54% last year compared to the year prior, which cites statistics from the International Federation of Robotics. Next year, China is poised to have installed more robotic machines than any other country, the paper reports.

The automotive and electronics industries are leading the charge in workforce automation. The Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn, which supplies iPhones for Apple AAPL -1.92% , for instance, predicts that 70% of its assembly line work will be taken over by robots three years from now. As an IFR document summarizes about the explosive demand for robots worldwide:

“Impetus will mainly come from Asia, particularly from China, and from North America. The automotive industry will continue to be the innovator for new technology. The growing global demand for electronic products, new products, and new production technologies are boosting investments in retooling of existing production processes and expanding production capacities of the electrical/electronics industry particularly in Asia.”

At the moment, China has 30 industrial robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers—about double what it had in 2013.

目前，中国每1万名制造工人配备有30个工业用机器人，这一数值是2013年的两倍。

“The automation of China’s production plants has just started”, ABB Robotics managing director Per Vegard Nerseth told IFR in January. “As the first foreign robot manufacturer to arrive here, we have observed the market and developments for years now. We have witnessed swift, almost explosive growth over the last two or three years, surpassing even our expectations.”

Industry watchers are expecting major growth to continue in Asian markets such as China, Korea, and other Southeast Asian countries. As the IFR forecasts, “The potential for robot installations in this market is still tremendous.”